I went vegan in July, 2017. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was around that time that I quit all non-vegan products. I quit meat first and then gradually decreased the consumption of dairy products till I finally quit them. Giving up meat was not difficult for me. Since childhood, I have seen animals getting butchered in meat shops and I had always felt guilty about eating animals. However, conditioning overpowered any sense of guilt I had and I continued eating meat until one day when I thought that I had had enough and I was not going to have animals killed for my food. When I started reading articles and watching documentaries on veganism, I got to know of the cruel dairy/egg/leather/silk/honey/wool industry practices and I decided that it was time quit all non-vegan products for good.

I went vegan because I felt that it was unjust to exploit, abuse, enslave and murder animals for our interest. I believe that an individual should be accountable to themselves for their actions and choices. Harming sentient beings for our enjoyment is not only unfair, it’s unnecessary. The environmental impact of animal agriculture also added to the many reasons why I turned vegan.

Do you have any nonhuman companions?

No, I don’t.

Do you help animals in any way?

I am not associated with any NGO or animal rescue body, but I try to help animals at an individual level. If I see any animal in trouble, I try to get them out of it.

What do you think is the way forward for veganism in India?

When I was very new to veganism, I did not have any idea about how massive the Indian vegan community was. I got to know of the scale of the vegan movement in India when I joined the ‘Vegans in India’ group on Facebook.

It is true that a majority of Indians are non-vegans. It’s ridiculous that people associate eating animals/dairy products with Indian culture, but sadly that is how it is in most parts of this country. There are also vegetarians who feel morally superior to non-vegetarians, and when you show them what goes on in dairy industries, they make an exhibition of their utter indifference, unaccountability and stupidity.

It’s my belief that most Indians don’t even think that animal exploitation, abuse and murder are serious issues. Most of them go on to make a mockery of themselves by giving ludicrous statements justifying their eating habits with no logical basis whatsoever.

However, from what I have been seeing, veganism is on the rise in India and more people are becoming aware of the vegan lifestyle. Thanks to the many sensitization movements going on in different parts of this county, people are getting educated on veganism and hopefully they will make the right choice at the earliest.

Physical and mental changes you’ve noticed since going vegan?

I think I am at peace with my conscience now that I’m vegan, and I have much more clarity in thinking and of the general philosophy of life than I used to. Physically, I feel more agile and active than before.

What kind of food do you like and dislike?

I am a sucker for healthy food. I like trying different cuisines and experimenting with my food. Of late, I have developed a distaste for junk food and processed foods and although I do make exceptions from time to time, I try to eat what’s good for my body.

Tell me about your most memorable meal and restaurants you like to visit.

I have had many memorable meals and it’s hard to choose the most memorable from amongst them. I would like to visit Carrots (Bangalore), The Vegan Oven (Ludhiana), Bodhi Greens (Dharamshala), Jumping Beans (Bangalore), Vegan Burger Kitchen (Mumbai), Ahimsa – The Vegan Café (Shirdi), etc.

“Eight years ago as a scrawny lad at the age of 17, I was introduced to the pull up bar by my uncle, who inspired me to use my body weight to exercise, adding in variations along with push ups and running. I started training with him and soon it became an addiction! My diet used to include meat, eggs, dal, rice and ghee. I’ve always loved animals and was brought up to have compassion for all animals thanks to my aunt, but was not aware of what goes on in the slaughter industry.

Soon after I started working out, I discovered calisthenics, and then found another inspiration in life – Bruce Lee! I started researching, studying and practicing his martial art, Jeet Kune Do. My workouts would include pull ups, push ups, dips, core and cardio and kept improving the intensity by adding weights and performing the movements. I performed these movements for four years straight while studying hotel management in Bangalore and soon realized my passion was in the fitness industry.

It was in Bangalore that I researched on the slaughter industry and made me realize that eating meat was not right. I quit eating meat at the age of 21 but ate eggs and milk since I wasn’t educated that one could build strength and muscles without eating some sort of animal protein. While in Bangalore I studied Krav Maga, an Israeli martial art and developed my
skills in street fighting. I moved back to Pune but would used to come to Mumbai on weekends, and further studied Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee’s lineage. I also did a certification in fitness and learned body building techniques and body mechanics, and started applying them in my workouts.

In a month I was soon squatting and deadlifting as if I have been lifting weights for a year thanks to the years of calisthenics. I started working at the functional fitness club Multifit as the core team and head coach two years back and progressed in functional training and calisthenics. By this time I knew about the cruelty in the egg and milk industry and wanted to turn vegan but didn’t know how to without losing muscle and physical performance. It was then that I came across a scientific fitness based organisation called Alpharaj and met the founder, Aman Duggal, who helped me turn vegan and educated me on how to consume enough nutrients through vegan food and supplements to suit my workouts and martial arts routine. It’s been a year since I turned vegan with putting on muscle and increased overall performance.“

Karnatic vocalist, musicologist and creator of the S.R.I Mrudanga – a fiberglass Mridangam with synthetic drumheads

When, how and why did you go vegan?

I became vegan during March 2010. I was a born vegetarian and was always deeply disturbed by the cruelty to animals and wanted to help them in some way. Before I went vegan I had not realized the abuse and cruelty to cows in the dairy industry that involved artificial insemination, separation of newly born male calves from their mothers, administration of harmones and injections to cows to increase milk production and the slaughter of male calves and the mother cows once the milk production stopped. When I happened to read about the abusive practices of the Dairy Industry I decided to become a vegan immediately and thus me and my wife Veena both became vegans then on. We became vegans purely for ethical reasons. Six months from that time both my children also became vegan.

Do you have any nonhuman companions?

We have not kept any pets at home but we take care of several of the community dogs.

Do you help animals in any way?

Yes we do. We take care of 5-6 community dogs in our neighborhood by providing them food and water everyday. We have kept a large bowl of water outside our house gate so that animals that pass by have access to drinking water. We have got some of these dogs spayed and neutered. Puppies born to these dogs have been taken to adoption camps where they got adopted. We always talk about veganism with people to spread the awareness. We also do lot of AR campaigns through social networking sites such as Facebook. Perhaps most importantly, I have created a vegan Mridangam after 6 years of research (South Indian classical percussion instrument) and my company “Karunya Musicals” manufactures and markets these vegan Mridangams. The vegan mridangam replaces animal skins by synthetic materials and the wood used for the shell is replaced by fiberglass.

What do you think is the way forward for veganism in India?

Massive campaigns for spreading awareness through talks,and audio/video presentations is the need of the hour. Also vegans must get united burying their ideological differences and keep only the liberation of animals in mind. Availability of affordable vegan products as alternatives to animal products is also going to be very helpful.

Physical and mental changes you’ve noticed since going vegan?

Certainly better health overall after turning vegan. My migraine headaches have stopped and energy levels have increased. I am definitely more active now than before (when I was not a vegan). Most importantly a mind that is guilt free.

What kind of food do you like and dislike?

I generally like home cooked food, the regular type of meals and breakfast of a typical South Indian family I like a lot of cooked vegetables. i also relish eating raw vegetables and fruits. I dislike too oily or spicy stuff.

Tell me about your most memorable meal and restaurants you like to visit.

As I mentioned I like home cooked food the most. My wife Veena prepares excellent food with a lot of variety. However, we do go to outside restaurants once in a while along with family. Our most memorable restaurant meal was at “Paradigm Shift” in Bangalore where we ate vegan cake and ice cream after a long gap. Recently we have been enjoying the vegan ice cream by white cub which has now become available in Bangalore. We have a restaurant called “Rasoi” in Kasthurinagar Bangalore which is quite vegan-friendly.

Giving up meat was not difficult for me. Since childhood, I have seen animals getting butchered in meat shops and I had always felt guilty about eating animals. However, conditioning overpowered any sense of guilt I had and I continued eating meat until one day when I thought that I had had enough and I was not going to have animals killed for my food.

Massive campaigns for spreading awareness through talks,and audio/video presentations is the need of the hour. Also vegans must get united burying their ideological differences and keep only the liberation of animals in mind. Availability of affordable vegan products as alternatives to animal products is also going to be very helpful.

Veganism has to be delinked from religion. Jains and brahmins don’t have some hotline to virtue. Muslims are not evil monsters. Veganism is the philosophy of a British man who joined the dots and made an ethical connection our ancient philosophers and demagogues did not. Instead, we need to show how veganism intersects with other movements for social justice and is not just an elite fad. Especially in India, anyone can go vegan and live a healthy life without any extra expense. The ethical dimension is primary, but the linkage to religion and class has to be shattered.

I help animals by leaving them alone and not involving them or their byproducts in my lifestyle whatsoever. I now enjoy more vitality, less stress, healthy weight loss, and much greater peace of mind overall.

It’s my observation that humans are the most isolated creatures on this planet. We share our planet with at least 10 million different species of which we are one. How many of these do we interact with? NONE. The apathy that we observe by our fellow humans towards animals is based on this disconnect. There has to be animal-human interaction.

I’d always felt guilty whenever I’d consumed eggs and dairy having seen Earthlings a few years ago. And yet I’d be the first one to call people out on any form of animal cruelty. One day, last May, I decided I’d have to stop being a hypocrite and went vegan overnight.

I started out by trying out being vegan for a week in the beginning of the year, quitting dairy food as well, as well as slowly removing myself from clothes etc made from animals. Halfway through that week I took the plunge. There was no second thoughts about it once I figured out that it was not hard at all to sustain a cruelty-free existence if one tried.

I am a dietary vegan and I became one for health reasons. However with that being said, I do not use dead animal skin, so my shoes, wallet, belt are all ‘pu’. I like it, I feel great and why not. I lost 30 kgs by eating more than I ever have. I have clarity in my life and work that I have never had before. I am patient and my temperament and stamina is better.

The only thing I regret about turning vegan is that, I should’ve turned vegan much earlier in life. I read and watched videos about the extreme cruelty meted out to animals by the dairy, poultry and meat industry- besides incessant killings, baby calves are separated from their mothers, animals are subjected to severe health hazards and endless exploitation and torture. I need to have a clean conscience and not have an exploited, brutalized and killed sentient being on my plate.

Most Indians are arrogant, stupid, and very annoying. We take pride in really stupid and silly things. The religion we belong to, the caste we belong to, the language we speak, the money we have in our accounts etc. Most of the people who know about veganism in India take it as a threat to their community, religion, to their business and so most of the time we don’t get the response we want. People have been brain washed really bad on the name of religion, for profit, for exploiting our fellow beings.

The real clincher was when I watched the documentary Earthlings, which introduced me to the concept of species-ism for the very first time. Within the first ten minutes of that documentary, I was done. I didn’t want to contribute to that mass suffering just for my own enjoyment. I made a Facebook post announcing my mental shift, and also talking about the guilt I felt for mindlessly engaging in such destructive behavior for 21 years of my life. I then went on to binge read Vegan Sidekick comics, and could not believe how illogically I had been living my entire life beforehand.

Like most people, I was raised to ignore the “animalness” of the animals I was eating. To victimize another being for pleasure is not something I’ve ever been able to live with. When I realized that by eating meat I was causing pain and suffering to other beings who were, in their capacity for suffering, more like me than unlike me, I could no longer justify that decision to myself anymore. And I found out that I didn’t even need animal flesh to be healthy. It is important to me to feel that I’m being true to my own sense of ethics, and veganism does that for me.

I am now aware all the time that nonhuman earthlings are SHARING the Earth WITH US, they aren’t here FOR us. So, other than helping out obviously “cute” and “sad” looking animals, my treatment of random insects (dangerous or not) ants, a sudden lizard on the road etc..has totally changed. I make sure I get them away from me without harming them.

Being born in a Brahmin family I was vegetarian already. I was raised in the best way by my parents – they made me value every life present on earth. But I was not vegan till the time I watched this video by PETA on cows, pigs and poultry birds… that’s when I decided to go vegan!

I AM VEGAN because I am awake to the suffering of nonhuman animals caused by humans and wish to be no part of it. There’s no way I’d harm an animal for my food or clothing or for anything at all, so there’s no way in hell I’m going to pay other humans to do it.

EVERY MEMBER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM wants and deserves our friendship, love and respect as much as the animals a lot of us live with, and I feel a very deep connection with all of them and the earth.

I WILL NEVER stop talking about veganism because what others think of as their personal choice is affecting not only animals who suffer only because they were not born human but also the condition of our planet and the present and future of humans as well.

I AM VEGAN because I am awake to the suffering of nonhuman animals caused by humans and wish to be no part of it. There’s no way I’d harm an animal for my food or clothing or for anything at all, so there’s no way in hell I’m going to pay other humans to do it.

EVERY MEMBER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM wants and deserves our friendship, love and respect as much as the animals a lot of us live with, and I feel a very deep connection with all of them and the earth.

I WILL NEVER stop talking about veganism because what others think of as their personal choice is affecting not only animals who suffer only because they were not born human but also the condition of our planet and the present and future of humans as well.

I SPEAK UP for the animals and tell people how animal products affect human health as well inform them about the impact animal agriculture has on the environment.

THAT WE ARE FRUGIVORES becomes the most obvious thing to everybody who does a short raw vegan cleanse or even uses their common sense, and I feel it every time I eat a fruit-based meal, and I feel it even more when I eat any other type of ‘food’. Fruit is natural human food, and anything else is less than optimal.

WHAT THIS WORLD NEEDS is a lot more of us to accept responsibility for what we’re causing and take charge of the situation. I fail to understand why humans who are so particular about getting exactly what they want settle for garbage as food. Their ‘choices’ are governed by what they’ve been taught, the ads they see on TV and everywhere else, and what others are ingesting. Food is what sustains us – it’s stuff that’s supposed to give us energy and make us healthy, not send us to a doctor who knows nothing about nutrition and will give us pills to swallow every day. It’s terrible to have no control over what’s going in your mouth, passing through your digestive system, reaching every cell and becoming you, and coming out of your ass. These people don’t even have an answer as to why they’re continuing to fund industries that are hell on earth for animals despite having all the mock meats and dairy substitutes around and they feel bad when vegans tell them the truth.

CROCODILES HAVE ALWAYS fascinated me and now I find every bird, animal, insect and everything about nature captivating. I’ve lived with rabbits, now am ruled by cats, and I live to eat – as everybody on Facebook and Instagram already knows.

I went vegan because of my dog. I’d always been the sort of person who considered himself to be compassionate to animals. But, like most people, I was raised to ignore the “animalness” of the animals I was eating. To victimize another being for pleasure is not something I’ve ever been able to live with. When I realized that by eating meat I was causing pain and suffering to other beings who were, in their capacity for suffering, more like me than unlike me, I could no longer justify that decision to myself anymore. And I found out that I didn’t even need animal flesh to be healthy. It is important to me to feel that I’m being true to my own sense of ethics, and veganism does that for me.

Do you have any nonhuman companions?

Yep, I live with my dog.

Do you help animals in any way?

Yes! Mostly stray dogs.

What do you think is the way forward for veganism in India?

I went vegan because of music. I was so inspired by straightedge hardcore bands. It is always better to connect with like minded people.

Physical and mental changes you’ve noticed since going vegan?

Physically – I lost some extra weight and started feeling really good, and then I cut out packaged foods and refined sugar and started feeling even better! I joined a gym and lost another eight kilos, and working out and veganism have given me crazy stamina! I seem to never get tired! Mentally, I feel much more relaxed that my diet is not causing any harm to innocent animals.

What kind of food do you like and dislike? Tell me about your most memorable meal and restaurants you like to visit.

I don’t really like eating out that much. I do all kinds of experiments at home. Vegan smoothies are my favorites.

My path towards being vegan began with ‘the best speech you will ever hear’ by Gary Yourofsky which I came across when it was incidentally shared by you on your Mehta Kya Kehta FB page. I watched it because I had nothing else to do, and it ended up changing my whole life. Before this the only thing I knew about vegans was that they avoided all animal products. That’s it. I didn’t know or understand the reason behind the abstainment, I just presumed it’s a puritanical way of living…something I would never subscribe to. But the video made me quit meat that instant. Dairy and eggs took a while, and Peta’s documentary on the Indian diary industry, and Earthlings and my own reasoning helped me take the final step.

Do you have any nonhuman companions?

Yup, a dog – his name is Shadow. He has been a part of my life for the last 9 years, and his level of perception surprises me to this day. It’s my observation that humans are the most isolated creatures on this planet. We share our planet with at least 10 million different species of which we are one. How many of these do we interact with? NONE. The apathy that we observe by our fellow humans towards animals is based on this disconnect. There has to be animal human interaction. It would have been very difficult for me to go vegan if it wasn’t for Shadow.

Do you help animals in any way?

Yes, many a times, helping animals in need is the least we can do. We have many NGOs working for animal welfare. SPCA Thane is one of them. They are very efficient, they have a functioning animal ambulance during the day and their shelter/hospital is open to serve 24*7 .

My most recent encounter was with a pigeon suffering from avian pox. This unfortunate little one was blinded and unable to fly. I still remember the moment I held him. They feel pain, they feel fear, and the least we can do is help.

Also a big shout out to Animal Ark run by none other than Prakash Baba Amte, the son of Baba Amte. I will be grateful even if I achieve a tenth of what he has in my lifetime.

What do you think is the way forward for veganism in India?

The way forward is interaction, every medium is relevant every small action, even if it is a ‘like’ or a ‘share’ on Facebook. Take part in debates put forth your points but don’t get carried away. Arguing with incomplete, incorrect information hurts the cause more than helping it. Shun beliefs – they are the bane of mankind.

Physical and mental changes you’ve noticed since going vegan?

A lot of mental changes, much calmer and composed than before.

What kind of food do you like and dislike?

I am a South Indian and I am a fan of South Indian food. I can thrive on idlis and dosas for eternity. My favorite of the lot is a vat of olan – pumpkin cooked in a broth of coconut milk with green chillies. You can have it as it is or with steamed rice YUMM!

Tell me about your most memorable meal and restaurants you like to visit.